BirdingGirl

Western Tanager  Cedar Waxwing Brewer's Sparrow in the sage brush (I think...) Brewer's Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco The Cedar Waxwing picture was also taken at the side of the nature preserve along Teton Park Road (Grand Teton National Park). The Brewer's Sparrow pictures were taken at while we were camping with some friends at Taylor Fork, near Big Sky. Sparrows are by nature tricky to identify (especially for me!) but I did my best to narrow down the list, and feel like it's a close  match.

Magnolia warblers are my FAVORITE warbler (well, aside from Blackburnian Warblers, but I've only seen one once at Mt. Auburn Cemetery). I don't know what it is- the name maybe? "Magnolia" has such nice connotations. And the coloring- I love the yellow with black streaks, and the gray. All the colors come together so nicely. I decided to look it up on Allaboutbirds.org to see if they had any information about where the name comes from- apparently the name was originally given to them in 1810 by Alexander Wilson who saw one in a Magnolia tree. Funnily enough he took the Black and Yellow Warbler English name, and added Magnolia to its Latin name, which became the predominant name over time. We went to visit Steve's parents in Fairfield, CT the weekend of May 22-23 so of course I was on high alert for warblers. I noticed the Cedar Waxwings first. They were flying between the trees in his parents' backyard and the top of a dead tree in his neighbor's yard: I...

I truly enjoyed my day out with members of Gordon's Gaggle during the 2008 MassAudubon Bird-a-thon. I learned so much about ID-ing birds, got out to a great birding spot, and even got a few pictures for my blog. I planned to meet the team at Mt. Auburn Cemetery at 9:00am. They were running a little late (good birding in Medford) so I spent the first hour by myself, which was good since it gave me some time to explore on my own. It was an exciting place to be during the Bird-a-thon. There were birders everywhere with their Swarovskis, huge scopes and tripods. I went down to a quiet shaded area where I spotted some Chipping Sparrows and also some black and white warblers w/yellow. At this point I was just practicing using my binoculars and didn't get any pictures so I quickly forgot what they looked like. At 10:00 I met the two members of the group assigned to Mt. Auburn Cemetery and they took me up Indian Ridge right away. There was unbelievable activity up there. There were so ...